BIOGRAPHY

Hello! I am Wu Xin Yim and I am a final year Bachelor of Design student majoring in Interface Design and minoring in Computer Science. Waikato has been a great place to expand my knowledge on design as well as try new things, I’ve had so many opportunities and valuable experiences while studying at Waikato.
I have a background in art and wanted to try something different which ended up being design. Studying design at Waikato has helped me think creatively in many ways and become more confident in my abilities to plan, critique and code. Over the past three years I have gained a passion for HCI which has helped me in developing and designing interactive projects. I have also developed a passion for animation and branding, something which I was unfamiliar with, but I am now excited to have new pathways to explore.

Personal Website

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

As the world grows closer together, everything becomes so much easier to access, however, this has introduced hundreds of exotic plants to New Zealand that require more resources to maintain. These exotic plants aren’t used to New Zealand’s habitat and require more water, chemicals and energy to maintain. Native New Zealand plants are plentiful, but they don’t get the same amount of attention nor recognition.

I have investigated the greenspace native biodiversity of young New Zealand homeowners to understand what information they lack when it comes to finding native plants for their greenspace. After conducting research, I have found that the main issues were that most information on native plants were filled with jargon, too much text and not enough pictures. I also found that the majority of the people I interviewed could not name nearly as many native plants as they could exotic plants. With these issues in mind I designed a solution called “Nativespace” which aims to educate young homeowners on native plants and encourage them to be more conscious of the native biodiversity in their greenspace.

“Nativespace” is an app designed to help users find the right native plant for them and provide them with the information they need to look after their plant and where to buy/find the plant.